Research Question: How effective has "No Child Left Behind" been in the United States? Author: Kelsea Adams
Editorial/Opinion Essay:
Summary
In the opinion essay "Sunday Dialogue: Transforming Our Schools" the author has a very interesting approach of discussing education reform. This opinion essay consists of a high school senior's letter to the editor and his own thoughts about the American Education System and "No Child Left Behind". The high school senior explains how current educational reform methods build on the idea of creating "good education" from standardized test scores. He believes that because George W. Bush signed "No Child Left Behind" law 10 years ago, the American Education System has turned into learning how to fill in test bubbles, answer test questions, score proficiently on these tests. The schools have been bribed and threatened based on their test scores, and while all of this is going on no one is really worrying about what the students are actually learning.The students are being treated as "a number on a spreadsheet", and not as "creative and motivated human beings", the high school senior states. In the conclusion of this article, the high school senior discusses political viewpoints and their outlook on educational reform. It seems as Obama has just enforced the "No Child Left Behind" law by implementing "Race to the Top", which stresses test scores even more on the schools behalf. The author feels that these constant reforms from new politicians are not enough and a revolution is needed in order to put the American Education System back on its feet. As the opinion essay continues, various teachers/parents/other viewers, comment on the high school senior's letter to the editor, and realize that someone's intelligence doesn't have to be determined through test scores, but can be determined through other methods. All of the commenters agree that this high school senior is a very intelligent and creative young man, not through test scores, but through his writing and his motivational drive!
Opinion
I personally agree with the high school senior from Syosset, New York and his viewpoint on Educational Reform. Students each year are treated as numbers for their school district, in hopes that they will perform well on the standardized tests and the schools will gain adequate funding from their state. Although this may seem like a great way to measure a school's learning achievement, it doesn't focus on each individual student and their needs, rather it focus' on a bigger picture of how the school is teaching based on certain standardized tests. Students need to be able to express their intelligence and be creative, rather than be drilled over and over throughout the year, monotonously to produce high scores. The American Education System needs a complete turnaround, not necessarily to get rid of the standardized tests, but maybe to change to content and the way they are run.
Summary
In the analysis article "In Defense of No Child Left Behind", the author discusses the logistics of the "No Child Left Behind" Act and what it was truly meant to accomplish. He states that although "No Child Left Behind" had its successes and failures, it did help to accomplish a few things that the American Education System needed help with. When the "No Child Left Behind" Act was originally created in mind that it would have to have numerous revisions later on. The main purpose was to increase the accountability of American Schools and to create a standard of what students should be learning and hold school's accountable for teaching them these standards, By doing so, "No Child Left Behind" was able to measure the teaching abilities of the different school districts and make changes to schools who were not meeting protocol. Although "No Child Left Behind" was not perfect, it was seen in the eyes of the American people as something that should be, and was bashed whenever something went wrong. The author makes a strong point that if every program America created such as "food stamps, Medicare and Social Security" were measured the same way "No Child Left Behind" is, America would have never been able to create these programs. The "No Child Left Behind" Act has created analysis data for grades 3-8 and started to make the American System think about change and improvement on a new level. It did create punishments for schools that scored poorly on the standardized scores, but this encouraged schools to solve the problem as to why their teaching methods are not working. The new law also improved the educational ability for low-income and minority students, who were before overlooked and not included in a school's overall achievement record.
The "No Child Left Behind" Act had many failures as well. It mainly pushed schools more and more to obtain high-test scores, but did not help them on how to reach them. States began to find loopholes in the law, in order to record their failing school districts as scoring adequately on standardized tests. They also began to focus solely on reaching these scores, and the actual idea of students learning went out the window. The "No Child Left Behind" Act displayed to America, that the states were unable to produce all well adequate schools based upon these standardized tests. The Federal Government stepped in to look at teacher credentials, faculty and staff and funding to try to solve the problem, but it seemed the schools were never really helped or prepared. All in all, the "No Child Left Behind" Act did help the American Education System out of its previous issue of the Federal Government "pumping in money to various school districts without even knowing their achievements or records".
Opinion
I agree with the author of this article because even though he is in defense of "No Child Left Behind", he states all of the logistics, both positives and negatives of the act. Educational Reform is a hot topic in the United States, and although "No Child Left Behind" and other reforms are based right and left, they have helped the American Education System in one way or another. Schools are now adequately measured and are beginning to think or ways to reform their own districts in order to progress. Also, "No Child Left Behind" put a stop to the Federal Government pumping in money to various schools without knowing what the school was capable of. The "No Child Left Behind" Act had increased test scores in many schools and gave American Education System a basis of measuring the schools and a start on which ones need to be reformed. Personally, I believe that "No Child Left Behind" is a great start for the reformation of schools. I believe that now that the American schools are measured by the "No Child Left Behind" Act, the American Education System needs to take the next step and revise and reform the schools. The "No Child Left Behind" Act was a good effort, but maybe a new way of testing the schools needs to be created, and this can be seen as a learning point for the American Education System, both positively and negatively.
Summary
In the scholarly article "No Child Left Behind:What we know and what we don't know", the author is very informative about the "No Child Left Behind" Act and what it does for our American Education System. The main purpose for establishing the "No Child Left Behind" Act was to hold schools and educational facilities accountable for student achievement on standardized tests. By implementing these standardized tests, the American Education System can properly measure if students are meeting the required educational standards. If they are meeting the requirements, they will be rewarded by being adequately funded, and if not they will be punished by receiving less money from the Federal Government and being forced to change their school system by adding/removing teachers and staff members. The "No Child Left Behind" Act is designed to remove the achievement gap between "advantaged and disadvantaged students".
Although the above may be true, there are many misconceptions of the "No Child Left Behind" Act. This article summarizes how effective and ineffective the law has been in the United States. The "No Child Left Behind" Act can be seen as ineffective for many reasons. One reason being is it cannot adequately test the students' progress because different states have different standardized tests and requirements for students to achieve. Also, school districts seem to be working around the AYP standard or Adequate Yearly Progression, by doing whatever it takes to make their school districts thrive on these standardized tests. The primary goal is to remove the achievement gap between "advantaged and disadvantaged students" by using these tests to rate the schools and their performance. The "No Child Left Behind" Act promises to help reform this low-scoring schools to become more successful, but in reality they do the opposite. Schools are encouraged to do well and are then rewarded, but schools who need the help are punished and not provided funding; therefore leaving this low-scoring schools without any true help through funding or reforming their school system. A second reason that "No Child Left Behind" is ineffective is because states are not including all students standardized test scores into their AYP reports because some of the students such as the special education students will be counted more than once; therefore, bringing there scores down. These special education students may be counted into the racial categories as well such as White, Black or Hispanic categories. By doing this, the "No Child Left Behind" Act is not producing correct results of the achievement of schools. Another reason as to why the "No Child Left Behind" Act is seen as ineffective is because a school's achievement cannot be measured based upon one single test; it is not very accurate. Some students have different learning capabilities, different situations at home, and different ways that their minds think and are creative. A single standardized test cannot measure a teacher's capability to teach and a school's progress, because it may not be appropriate for the child who is taking the test.
The "No Child Left Behind" Act also focuses more on basic skills in order to "ace" the standardized test versus innovative thinking on higher levels. This causes students to become prepared for the upcoming standardized tests and not necessarily to become educated to step into society. Students are taught a "narrowed curriculum" in order to primarily focus on the tested areas of reading, writing, math and science. Other areas such as art, music, physical education, history and health are not focused on because they are not being tested. This causes school districts become very subject based with minimal variations or alterations from these subjects.
The "No Child Left Behind" Act also can be seen as effective in some ways, which are described in this article. One way "No Child Left Behind" can be seen as effective is its ability to push schools and their students towards educational success. It gives schools a set of guidelines to reach and strive for. A second way the law can be seen as effective is its ability to make all students meet the educational standards and requirements that are set by the "No Child Left Behind" Act. Schools are held accountable for their students' failure, which can be seen both positively and negatively. By doing this, schools are encouraged to implement better teaching methods and hirer better quality teachers in order to implement these methods. A third way the "No Child Left Behind" Act can be seen as effective is it provides data for parents to see how their children's school is achieving academically and compared to other schools in the state. It gives parents comparative data to feel better about where their child is attending.
Opinion
I personally feel that the "No Child Left Behind" Act cannot measure a students progression accurately because it only measures certain subjects and doesn't curtail to a student's individual needs, only a general based area. The constant drill and focus on these tests takes out the creativeness that children might have, and bases their educational experience on these standardized tests and their achievement, rather than actually learning something. The "No Child Left Behind" Act alters the main purpose of school districts to teach students, allow them to think creatively and to prepare them for their future of joining the society. The "No Child Left Behind" Act is thinking more about numbers and data versus creativeness and individual progression of students.
Maleyko, G., & Gawlik, M. A. (2011). No Child Left Behind: what we know and what we need to know. Education, 131(3), 600–624.
Summary Article:
Summary
In the summary article "School Reform", the author discusses the effects of "No Child Left Behind" on the American Education System and how effective it has actually been. Teachers in America are constantly measured and judged based on their students' standardized tests scores, and are put under so much stress in order to keep the test scores high. In jeopardy of losing their jobs or losing their current pay, teachers are drilled into thinking that their students' scores on standardized tests are more important than the content of what they are learning throughout the year. As the years go on with "No Child Left Behind" being implemented, the students have at adequate levels, while the amount of money poured into the programs is increasing. It just doesn't seem to make sense that the students aren't improving as planned, with the amount of money out in. This may be because the "No Child Left Behind" Act puts the stress on teachers and faculty when children do poorly on these standardized test scores, when in reality in may be due to their surrounding area. Research shows that that a student's family, family-income and surrounding living area impact their test scores by more than 60%, while the teachers and schools impact them between 10%-15%. This shows that the stress put on schools and teachers to make students continually thrive on the standardized tests and the amount of money put in these programs, should maybe go somewhere else.
Research also shows that the Untied States is ranked behind England, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan when it comes to standardized test scores in 2007. With this being said, maybe the United States should look to other methods in reforming the American Education System rather than making it a competition between schools to stay open and teachers to keep their jobs and salaries. The author also states that according data, reading, math and science scores seem to be higher in the Northeast, possibly due to the higher economic standpoint in the Northeastern States.It seems as if that in low-poverty school districts, the standardized test scores seem to be lower than average or lower than the standardized test scores in high-income school districts. The Federal Government seems to see this, but the actual improvement and achievement of the black students in these schools seems to go unnoticed, and just the school's test scores are looked at on a whole.
The Federal Government uses these standardized test scores to compare the schools and to award the money to schools with the best teachers and staff, and not truly focusing on reforming the schools who need help. These high standardized test scores don't necessarily prove that the teachers and staff of this school district are "the best". By using this method, unprepared schools, are left in the shadow and are not adequately funded by the Federal Government. This also leads to the build-up charter schools and increase to private companies supplying the Standardized tests such as Pearson.
Opinion
I personally feel that the ongoing battle in the American Education System will never end, because the Federal Government and the taxpayers in America will never see eye to eye. The Federal Government is worried about where their money will go, how the schools are teaching the children according to their method of testing the students (Standardized Tests) and which schools will continue to prosper. The taxpayers are wondering why there kids are not excelling in school like they should be and are wondering where their money is going, because they don't see any reform in their own school. The "No Child Left Behind" Act seems to propose numerous issues in the American Education System and is based upon money and test scores and not educating the youth! While achievement of a school and the location of taxpayer's money are both very important, many seem to forget the big picture of what the American Education System is for. If the United States focuses primarily on these two issues, the intelligence and economic standpoint of our country is going decrease drastically in the future, because of what we are implementing in the schools to our future generation!
My research taught me numerous things about my original question of "How effective has No Child Left Behind been in the United States?" By researching both the positives and the negatives of the "No Child Left Behind" Act, I can conclude that although there have been many failures of the law, there are some success that it has brought to the American Education System. The "No Child Left Behind" Act can be seen as a stepping stone in Educational Reform and there are many more progressions that need to be taken in order to improve the American Education System. The Act had provided the United States with data as to how the school systems were doing (although some of the data was inaccurate) and a starting point as to evaluate where there money should go. It did not provide an adequate test to measure schools progression or what schools deserved money from the Federal Government nor did it provide how to achieve success and reform for the educational systems. The "No Child Left Behind" Act is something the American Education System can learn from and hopefully develop a new program that will incorporate the successful aspects of "NCLP" and change its failures.
Relevance in Rhode Island Schools
From the research I learned, the schools in Rhode Island will be measured and rated through standardized tests. From there, the states will decide to give adequate funding to schools who achieve high test scores. Schools with achieve low test scores will not be provided with adequate funding by the state and will be forced to overlook how their educational system is run. These test scores will measure the teacher's abilities; therefore, putting stress on them to achieve high-test scores versus making the children think creatively on higher levels.
Relevance to Charter Schools
In my research, I learned that the charter schools movement is greatly affected play by "No Child Left Behind". Charter schools are becoming more and more popular because the parents are unhappy with how their children are being educated. Parents want their children to be prepared for the world, and have an education that allows them to expand their knowledge and not just be confined to reading, math, writing and science. Because "No Child Left Behind" pushes schools to focus on these main areas to achieve high test scores, parents become more likely to send their child to a charter school if they want him/her to become well rounded and be taught by teachers who care about their child's individual needs.
Author: Kelsea Adams
Editorial/Opinion Essay:
Summary
In the opinion essay "Sunday Dialogue: Transforming Our Schools" the author has a very interesting approach of discussing education reform. This opinion essay consists of a high school senior's letter to the editor and his own thoughts about the American Education System and "No Child Left Behind". The high school senior explains how current educational reform methods build on the idea of creating "good education" from standardized test scores. He believes that because George W. Bush signed "No Child Left Behind" law 10 years ago, the American Education System has turned into learning how to fill in test bubbles, answer test questions, score proficiently on these tests. The schools have been bribed and threatened based on their test scores, and while all of this is going on no one is really worrying about what the students are actually learning.The students are being treated as "a number on a spreadsheet", and not as "creative and motivated human beings", the high school senior states. In the conclusion of this article, the high school senior discusses political viewpoints and their outlook on educational reform. It seems as Obama has just enforced the "No Child Left Behind" law by implementing "Race to the Top", which stresses test scores even more on the schools behalf. The author feels that these constant reforms from new politicians are not enough and a revolution is needed in order to put the American Education System back on its feet. As the opinion essay continues, various teachers/parents/other viewers, comment on the high school senior's letter to the editor, and realize that someone's intelligence doesn't have to be determined through test scores, but can be determined through other methods. All of the commenters agree that this high school senior is a very intelligent and creative young man, not through test scores, but through his writing and his motivational drive!
Opinion
I personally agree with the high school senior from Syosset, New York and his viewpoint on Educational Reform. Students each year are treated as numbers for their school district, in hopes that they will perform well on the standardized tests and the schools will gain adequate funding from their state. Although this may seem like a great way to measure a school's learning achievement, it doesn't focus on each individual student and their needs, rather it focus' on a bigger picture of how the school is teaching based on certain standardized tests. Students need to be able to express their intelligence and be creative, rather than be drilled over and over throughout the year, monotonously to produce high scores. The American Education System needs a complete turnaround, not necessarily to get rid of the standardized tests, but maybe to change to content and the way they are run.
Sunday Dialogue: Transforming Our Schools. (2012, October 13).The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/opinion/sunday/sunday-dialogue-transforming-our-schools.html
Analysis Article from a Magazine:
Summary
In the analysis article "In Defense of No Child Left Behind", the author discusses the logistics of the "No Child Left Behind" Act and what it was truly meant to accomplish. He states that although "No Child Left Behind" had its successes and failures, it did help to accomplish a few things that the American Education System needed help with. When the "No Child Left Behind" Act was originally created in mind that it would have to have numerous revisions later on. The main purpose was to increase the accountability of American Schools and to create a standard of what students should be learning and hold school's accountable for teaching them these standards, By doing so, "No Child Left Behind" was able to measure the teaching abilities of the different school districts and make changes to schools who were not meeting protocol. Although "No Child Left Behind" was not perfect, it was seen in the eyes of the American people as something that should be, and was bashed whenever something went wrong. The author makes a strong point that if every program America created such as "food stamps, Medicare and Social Security" were measured the same way "No Child Left Behind" is, America would have never been able to create these programs. The "No Child Left Behind" Act has created analysis data for grades 3-8 and started to make the American System think about change and improvement on a new level. It did create punishments for schools that scored poorly on the standardized scores, but this encouraged schools to solve the problem as to why their teaching methods are not working. The new law also improved the educational ability for low-income and minority students, who were before overlooked and not included in a school's overall achievement record.
The "No Child Left Behind" Act had many failures as well. It mainly pushed schools more and more to obtain high-test scores, but did not help them on how to reach them. States began to find loopholes in the law, in order to record their failing school districts as scoring adequately on standardized tests. They also began to focus solely on reaching these scores, and the actual idea of students learning went out the window. The "No Child Left Behind" Act displayed to America, that the states were unable to produce all well adequate schools based upon these standardized tests. The Federal Government stepped in to look at teacher credentials, faculty and staff and funding to try to solve the problem, but it seemed the schools were never really helped or prepared. All in all, the "No Child Left Behind" Act did help the American Education System out of its previous issue of the Federal Government "pumping in money to various school districts without even knowing their achievements or records".
Opinion
I agree with the author of this article because even though he is in defense of "No Child Left Behind", he states all of the logistics, both positives and negatives of the act. Educational Reform is a hot topic in the United States, and although "No Child Left Behind" and other reforms are based right and left, they have helped the American Education System in one way or another. Schools are now adequately measured and are beginning to think or ways to reform their own districts in order to progress. Also, "No Child Left Behind" put a stop to the Federal Government pumping in money to various schools without knowing what the school was capable of. The "No Child Left Behind" Act had increased test scores in many schools and gave American Education System a basis of measuring the schools and a start on which ones need to be reformed. Personally, I believe that "No Child Left Behind" is a great start for the reformation of schools. I believe that now that the American schools are measured by the "No Child Left Behind" Act, the American Education System needs to take the next step and revise and reform the schools. The "No Child Left Behind" Act was a good effort, but maybe a new way of testing the schools needs to be created, and this can be seen as a learning point for the American Education System, both positively and negatively.
Rotherham, A. J. (n.d.). In Defense of No Child Left Behind. Time. Retrieved from http://ideas.time.com/2012/01/06/in-defense-of-no-child-left-behind/
Scholarly/Professional Journal:
Summary
In the scholarly article "No Child Left Behind:What we know and what we don't know", the author is very informative about the "No Child Left Behind" Act and what it does for our American Education System. The main purpose for establishing the "No Child Left Behind" Act was to hold schools and educational facilities accountable for student achievement on standardized tests. By implementing these standardized tests, the American Education System can properly measure if students are meeting the required educational standards. If they are meeting the requirements, they will be rewarded by being adequately funded, and if not they will be punished by receiving less money from the Federal Government and being forced to change their school system by adding/removing teachers and staff members. The "No Child Left Behind" Act is designed to remove the achievement gap between "advantaged and disadvantaged students".
Although the above may be true, there are many misconceptions of the "No Child Left Behind" Act. This article summarizes how effective and ineffective the law has been in the United States. The "No Child Left Behind" Act can be seen as ineffective for many reasons. One reason being is it cannot adequately test the students' progress because different states have different standardized tests and requirements for students to achieve. Also, school districts seem to be working around the AYP standard or Adequate Yearly Progression, by doing whatever it takes to make their school districts thrive on these standardized tests. The primary goal is to remove the achievement gap between "advantaged and disadvantaged students" by using these tests to rate the schools and their performance. The "No Child Left Behind" Act promises to help reform this low-scoring schools to become more successful, but in reality they do the opposite. Schools are encouraged to do well and are then rewarded, but schools who need the help are punished and not provided funding; therefore leaving this low-scoring schools without any true help through funding or reforming their school system. A second reason that "No Child Left Behind" is ineffective is because states are not including all students standardized test scores into their AYP reports because some of the students such as the special education students will be counted more than once; therefore, bringing there scores down. These special education students may be counted into the racial categories as well such as White, Black or Hispanic categories. By doing this, the "No Child Left Behind" Act is not producing correct results of the achievement of schools. Another reason as to why the "No Child Left Behind" Act is seen as ineffective is because a school's achievement cannot be measured based upon one single test; it is not very accurate. Some students have different learning capabilities, different situations at home, and different ways that their minds think and are creative. A single standardized test cannot measure a teacher's capability to teach and a school's progress, because it may not be appropriate for the child who is taking the test.
The "No Child Left Behind" Act also focuses more on basic skills in order to "ace" the standardized test versus innovative thinking on higher levels. This causes students to become prepared for the upcoming standardized tests and not necessarily to become educated to step into society. Students are taught a "narrowed curriculum" in order to primarily focus on the tested areas of reading, writing, math and science. Other areas such as art, music, physical education, history and health are not focused on because they are not being tested. This causes school districts become very subject based with minimal variations or alterations from these subjects.
The "No Child Left Behind" Act also can be seen as effective in some ways, which are described in this article. One way "No Child Left Behind" can be seen as effective is its ability to push schools and their students towards educational success. It gives schools a set of guidelines to reach and strive for. A second way the law can be seen as effective is its ability to make all students meet the educational standards and requirements that are set by the "No Child Left Behind" Act. Schools are held accountable for their students' failure, which can be seen both positively and negatively. By doing this, schools are encouraged to implement better teaching methods and hirer better quality teachers in order to implement these methods. A third way the "No Child Left Behind" Act can be seen as effective is it provides data for parents to see how their children's school is achieving academically and compared to other schools in the state. It gives parents comparative data to feel better about where their child is attending.
Opinion
I personally feel that the "No Child Left Behind" Act cannot measure a students progression accurately because it only measures certain subjects and doesn't curtail to a student's individual needs, only a general based area. The constant drill and focus on these tests takes out the creativeness that children might have, and bases their educational experience on these standardized tests and their achievement, rather than actually learning something. The "No Child Left Behind" Act alters the main purpose of school districts to teach students, allow them to think creatively and to prepare them for their future of joining the society. The "No Child Left Behind" Act is thinking more about numbers and data versus creativeness and individual progression of students.
Maleyko, G., & Gawlik, M. A. (2011). No Child Left Behind: what we know and what we need to know. Education, 131(3), 600–624.
Summary Article:
Summary
In the summary article "School Reform", the author discusses the effects of "No Child Left Behind" on the American Education System and how effective it has actually been. Teachers in America are constantly measured and judged based on their students' standardized tests scores, and are put under so much stress in order to keep the test scores high. In jeopardy of losing their jobs or losing their current pay, teachers are drilled into thinking that their students' scores on standardized tests are more important than the content of what they are learning throughout the year. As the years go on with "No Child Left Behind" being implemented, the students have at adequate levels, while the amount of money poured into the programs is increasing. It just doesn't seem to make sense that the students aren't improving as planned, with the amount of money out in. This may be because the "No Child Left Behind" Act puts the stress on teachers and faculty when children do poorly on these standardized test scores, when in reality in may be due to their surrounding area. Research shows that that a student's family, family-income and surrounding living area impact their test scores by more than 60%, while the teachers and schools impact them between 10%-15%. This shows that the stress put on schools and teachers to make students continually thrive on the standardized tests and the amount of money put in these programs, should maybe go somewhere else.
Research also shows that the Untied States is ranked behind England, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan when it comes to standardized test scores in 2007. With this being said, maybe the United States should look to other methods in reforming the American Education System rather than making it a competition between schools to stay open and teachers to keep their jobs and salaries. The author also states that according data, reading, math and science scores seem to be higher in the Northeast, possibly due to the higher economic standpoint in the Northeastern States.It seems as if that in low-poverty school districts, the standardized test scores seem to be lower than average or lower than the standardized test scores in high-income school districts. The Federal Government seems to see this, but the actual improvement and achievement of the black students in these schools seems to go unnoticed, and just the school's test scores are looked at on a whole.
The Federal Government uses these standardized test scores to compare the schools and to award the money to schools with the best teachers and staff, and not truly focusing on reforming the schools who need help. These high standardized test scores don't necessarily prove that the teachers and staff of this school district are "the best". By using this method, unprepared schools, are left in the shadow and are not adequately funded by the Federal Government. This also leads to the build-up charter schools and increase to private companies supplying the Standardized tests such as Pearson.
Opinion
I personally feel that the ongoing battle in the American Education System will never end, because the Federal Government and the taxpayers in America will never see eye to eye. The Federal Government is worried about where their money will go, how the schools are teaching the children according to their method of testing the students (Standardized Tests) and which schools will continue to prosper. The taxpayers are wondering why there kids are not excelling in school like they should be and are wondering where their money is going, because they don't see any reform in their own school. The "No Child Left Behind" Act seems to propose numerous issues in the American Education System and is based upon money and test scores and not educating the youth! While achievement of a school and the location of taxpayer's money are both very important, many seem to forget the big picture of what the American Education System is for. If the United States focuses primarily on these two issues, the intelligence and economic standpoint of our country is going decrease drastically in the future, because of what we are implementing in the schools to our future generation!
School Reform. (n.d.).CQ Researcher by CQ Press. Retrieved November 18, 2012, from http://0-library.cqpress.com.helin.uri.edu/cqresearcher/cqresrre2011042900
Overall Reaction to Your Research
My research taught me numerous things about my original question of "How effective has No Child Left Behind been in the United States?" By researching both the positives and the negatives of the "No Child Left Behind" Act, I can conclude that although there have been many failures of the law, there are some success that it has brought to the American Education System. The "No Child Left Behind" Act can be seen as a stepping stone in Educational Reform and there are many more progressions that need to be taken in order to improve the American Education System. The Act had provided the United States with data as to how the school systems were doing (although some of the data was inaccurate) and a starting point as to evaluate where there money should go. It did not provide an adequate test to measure schools progression or what schools deserved money from the Federal Government nor did it provide how to achieve success and reform for the educational systems. The "No Child Left Behind" Act is something the American Education System can learn from and hopefully develop a new program that will incorporate the successful aspects of "NCLP" and change its failures.
Relevance in Rhode Island Schools
From the research I learned, the schools in Rhode Island will be measured and rated through standardized tests. From there, the states will decide to give adequate funding to schools who achieve high test scores. Schools with achieve low test scores will not be provided with adequate funding by the state and will be forced to overlook how their educational system is run. These test scores will measure the teacher's abilities; therefore, putting stress on them to achieve high-test scores versus making the children think creatively on higher levels.
Relevance to Charter Schools
In my research, I learned that the charter schools movement is greatly affected play by "No Child Left Behind". Charter schools are becoming more and more popular because the parents are unhappy with how their children are being educated. Parents want their children to be prepared for the world, and have an education that allows them to expand their knowledge and not just be confined to reading, math, writing and science. Because "No Child Left Behind" pushes schools to focus on these main areas to achieve high test scores, parents become more likely to send their child to a charter school if they want him/her to become well rounded and be taught by teachers who care about their child's individual needs.